How do icebergs affect the Greenland ice sheet under pre-industrial conditions? – a model study with a fully coupled ice-sheet–climate model

Icebergs have a potential impact on climate since they release freshwater over a widespread area and cool the ocean due to the take-up of latent heat. Yet, so far, icebergs have never been modelled using an ice-sheet model coupled to a global climate model. Thus, in climate models their impact on cl...

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Published in:The Cryosphere
Main Authors: M. Bügelmayer, D. M. Roche, H. Renssen
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Copernicus Publications 2015
Subjects:
geo
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-821-2015
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/9/821/2015/tc-9-821-2015.pdf
https://doaj.org/article/d627733c84af45aa97b330af54fa024f
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spelling fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:oai:doaj.org/article:d627733c84af45aa97b330af54fa024f 2023-05-15T16:26:48+02:00 How do icebergs affect the Greenland ice sheet under pre-industrial conditions? – a model study with a fully coupled ice-sheet–climate model M. Bügelmayer D. M. Roche H. Renssen 2015-05-01 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-821-2015 http://www.the-cryosphere.net/9/821/2015/tc-9-821-2015.pdf https://doaj.org/article/d627733c84af45aa97b330af54fa024f en eng Copernicus Publications 1994-0416 1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-9-821-2015 http://www.the-cryosphere.net/9/821/2015/tc-9-821-2015.pdf https://doaj.org/article/d627733c84af45aa97b330af54fa024f undefined The Cryosphere, Vol 9, Iss 3, Pp 821-835 (2015) envir geo Journal Article https://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/resource_types/c_6501/ 2015 fttriple https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-821-2015 2023-01-22T19:12:08Z Icebergs have a potential impact on climate since they release freshwater over a widespread area and cool the ocean due to the take-up of latent heat. Yet, so far, icebergs have never been modelled using an ice-sheet model coupled to a global climate model. Thus, in climate models their impact on climate has been restricted to the ocean. In this study, we investigate the effect of icebergs on the climate of the mid- to high latitudes and the Greenland ice sheet itself within a fully coupled ice-sheet (GRenoble model for Ice Shelves and Land Ice, or GRISLI)–earth-system (iLOVECLIM) model set-up under pre-industrial climate conditions. This set-up enables us to dynamically compute the calving sites as well as the ice discharge and to close the water cycle between the climate and the cryosphere model components. Further, we analyse the different impact of moving icebergs compared to releasing the ice discharge at the calving sites directly. We performed a suite of sensitivity experiments to investigate the individual role of the different factors that influence the impact of the ice release on the ocean: release of ice discharge as icebergs versus as freshwater fluxes, and freshening and latent heat effects. We find that icebergs enhance the sea-ice thickness around Greenland, thereby cooling the atmosphere and increasing the Greenland ice sheet's height. Melting the ice discharge directly at the calving sites, thereby cooling and freshening the ocean locally, results in a similar ice-sheet configuration and climate as the simulation where icebergs are explicitly modelled. Yet, the simulation where the ice discharge is released into the ocean at the calving sites while taking up the latent heat homogeneously underestimates the cooling effect close to the ice-sheet margin and overestimates it further away, thereby causing a reduced ice-sheet thickness in southern Greenland. We conclude that in our fully coupled atmosphere–ocean–cryosphere model set-up the spatial distribution of the take-up of latent heat related to ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelves Sea ice The Cryosphere Unknown Greenland The Cryosphere 9 3 821 835
institution Open Polar
collection Unknown
op_collection_id fttriple
language English
topic envir
geo
spellingShingle envir
geo
M. Bügelmayer
D. M. Roche
H. Renssen
How do icebergs affect the Greenland ice sheet under pre-industrial conditions? – a model study with a fully coupled ice-sheet–climate model
topic_facet envir
geo
description Icebergs have a potential impact on climate since they release freshwater over a widespread area and cool the ocean due to the take-up of latent heat. Yet, so far, icebergs have never been modelled using an ice-sheet model coupled to a global climate model. Thus, in climate models their impact on climate has been restricted to the ocean. In this study, we investigate the effect of icebergs on the climate of the mid- to high latitudes and the Greenland ice sheet itself within a fully coupled ice-sheet (GRenoble model for Ice Shelves and Land Ice, or GRISLI)–earth-system (iLOVECLIM) model set-up under pre-industrial climate conditions. This set-up enables us to dynamically compute the calving sites as well as the ice discharge and to close the water cycle between the climate and the cryosphere model components. Further, we analyse the different impact of moving icebergs compared to releasing the ice discharge at the calving sites directly. We performed a suite of sensitivity experiments to investigate the individual role of the different factors that influence the impact of the ice release on the ocean: release of ice discharge as icebergs versus as freshwater fluxes, and freshening and latent heat effects. We find that icebergs enhance the sea-ice thickness around Greenland, thereby cooling the atmosphere and increasing the Greenland ice sheet's height. Melting the ice discharge directly at the calving sites, thereby cooling and freshening the ocean locally, results in a similar ice-sheet configuration and climate as the simulation where icebergs are explicitly modelled. Yet, the simulation where the ice discharge is released into the ocean at the calving sites while taking up the latent heat homogeneously underestimates the cooling effect close to the ice-sheet margin and overestimates it further away, thereby causing a reduced ice-sheet thickness in southern Greenland. We conclude that in our fully coupled atmosphere–ocean–cryosphere model set-up the spatial distribution of the take-up of latent heat related to ...
format Article in Journal/Newspaper
author M. Bügelmayer
D. M. Roche
H. Renssen
author_facet M. Bügelmayer
D. M. Roche
H. Renssen
author_sort M. Bügelmayer
title How do icebergs affect the Greenland ice sheet under pre-industrial conditions? – a model study with a fully coupled ice-sheet–climate model
title_short How do icebergs affect the Greenland ice sheet under pre-industrial conditions? – a model study with a fully coupled ice-sheet–climate model
title_full How do icebergs affect the Greenland ice sheet under pre-industrial conditions? – a model study with a fully coupled ice-sheet–climate model
title_fullStr How do icebergs affect the Greenland ice sheet under pre-industrial conditions? – a model study with a fully coupled ice-sheet–climate model
title_full_unstemmed How do icebergs affect the Greenland ice sheet under pre-industrial conditions? – a model study with a fully coupled ice-sheet–climate model
title_sort how do icebergs affect the greenland ice sheet under pre-industrial conditions? – a model study with a fully coupled ice-sheet–climate model
publisher Copernicus Publications
publishDate 2015
url https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-821-2015
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/9/821/2015/tc-9-821-2015.pdf
https://doaj.org/article/d627733c84af45aa97b330af54fa024f
geographic Greenland
geographic_facet Greenland
genre Greenland
Ice Sheet
Ice Shelves
Sea ice
The Cryosphere
genre_facet Greenland
Ice Sheet
Ice Shelves
Sea ice
The Cryosphere
op_source The Cryosphere, Vol 9, Iss 3, Pp 821-835 (2015)
op_relation 1994-0416
1994-0424
doi:10.5194/tc-9-821-2015
http://www.the-cryosphere.net/9/821/2015/tc-9-821-2015.pdf
https://doaj.org/article/d627733c84af45aa97b330af54fa024f
op_rights undefined
op_doi https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-9-821-2015
container_title The Cryosphere
container_volume 9
container_issue 3
container_start_page 821
op_container_end_page 835
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